If you are not familiar with the CRM designation, it stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is an enterprise-wide method of tracking and managing customer interactions with an organization, and the people that work within the organization, through the use of a variety of techniques. An ERP system can track and manage all customer interactions with the organization, but can only do so in a very general way.
An arm vs. CRM situation is a very specific type of ERP system. A customer relationship management system will contain features which allow for the easy integration of customer information into a company’s strategic plans. However, the ERP software is limited in its ability to communicate this information effectively to various departments, and it is usually done through reports and summaries. The main purpose of a CRM system is to ensure that all departments can share a single database, or a subset of the same database, for analysis purposes.
A CRM program allows an organization to collect data on all of its customers and to organize it into various forms. By creating relationships with customers and other stakeholders through these relationships, the CRM software allows the user to build relationships that provide insight into the needs of its users. This type of interaction, which is the heart of the CRM software, is the core function of the ERP system.
In a typical CRM situation, the arm vs. CRM designation is most often used to refer to the user interfaces and reporting tools of the system. While there are some CRM systems which integrate their reporting functionality with the user interface, this is very rarely the case, and usually the two components are independent.
An arm vs. CRM situation can also be used in conjunction with the term itself to refer to a company’s organizational structure. An enterprise-level CRM system is designed to meet a wide variety of organizational objectives, and it has a wide variety of features that will help in meeting these objectives. An ERP system designed to handle just one particular organization is typically more limited in its ability to meet the objectives of that organization.
In fact, the term arm vs. CRM may not actually stand for Customer Relationship Management at all, but may stand for customer relationship management as a business process. or strategy.
The use of the arm vs. CRM designation in the context of the ERP system is intended to indicate a general approach to the management of a customer relationship, and it is a fairly recent acronym to use. The acronym may have originated in the 1970’s when a group of marketing researchers were looking to determine the best way to communicate the need for a unified view of customer relationships to different departments of an organization.
The CRM concept was born from the use of multiple customer database systems which were all designed to handle the same business needs, with different types of data, and with different methods of interaction. While these databases and the associated CRM software provided a common interface, they still operated on a different set of strategies. In effect, the CRM system was meant to create a unified approach to customer relations management, which would help all departments of the organization. coordinate with each other.
Many large organizations have now integrated the CRM concept into their overall organizational structure, as a way to improve both its efficiency and its value. Many companies who are using ERP systems for internal purposes, such as sales force automation, financial planning, or accounting, have built applications that are tailored to the particular needs of these departments.
Many of the CRM concepts have become so specialized that they no longer apply to an organization’s entire approach to managing customer relations. For example, sales force automation programs that manage customer interaction often include an advanced type of CRM tool that helps to identify customers that are most likely to make repeat orders. Sales force automation programs also use CRM tools to help determine what factors influence the customer decision to make a repeat purchase. And, most importantly, CRM software that manages customer accounts also includes a number of financial and product reports that can be used by the sales force to track customer data and generate recommendations based on the information contained in the data.
In general, the arm vs. CRM designation refers to the extent to which a product or service is being managed in a centralized manner, and the method by which that product or service is being developed. In other words, CRM refers to a single source of information. This is a broad, generalized term.